Prometheus 6

White Authors, Ethnic Characters

A bit fluffier (and more in line with the typical romance novel) than I am used to, I picked up the first few novels while smirking at the ditzy Valley Girl Vampire Queen Heroine. I was amused for three books, but was brought up short at the fourth. In fourth friend, the protagonist’s token black friend is riding in a car, and instigating a coversation about the n-word, much to the chagrin of the other white characters in the car.

“It’s just a word, I’m past it…” says the black character, before turning to a white character and saying, “You can call me it just once.” The white character stutters on the page.

I take a break from reading. I flip to the back flap to check out the author’s photo. Yup, just as I suspected…white.

It reminds me of the first time I was compelled to assume an author was white. It was an issue of Luke Cage. They had restarted the series, and in the course of one of them "hero vs. hordes without number" scenes Mr. Cage says something like, "Step up...I gots a l'il sumpin' fo ya, boyee!" At the time, "boyee" was current slang, and used correctly.

I grew up when comic artists had no ownership of their work. I never paid a lot of attention to who wrote or drew a book. This writer HAD to be Black, and he was.

So I'm reading the series and about half a dozen issues in they switched writers as superhero comic publishers are won't to do. And I noticed the new author was white when Cage said, "All you boyees, come over here" and it was just so wrong, man...they nounized an exclamation!.

All of which came to mind when I picked up Imaro 2. It's a fantasy novel, and to be honest I had pretty much written off the genre as too predictable. You have to understand, I played the first version of Dungeons and Dragons...my favorite book in fourth grade was A Wrinkle in Time...I own the collected works of Michael Moorcock. Back when you had to search the science fiction section for a twenty minutes to find a sword and sorcery novel, I searched regularly. But there came a time when fantasy books literally pushed hard science fiction off the shelves and I got supersaturated. Now, your magic weapon must be really tight, your dragon exceptionally fearsome and most importantly, your plot or characterization or something has to be deep...and I've been disappointed enough to think better of just trying any new ones.

So what am I expecting from a fantasy genre novel by a Black author? I don't know. But you know what I miss? Identifying with a character. Maybe I'm too old for that sort of thing but no one is making it easy for me. The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad took a good shot at it. I think strongly ethnic characters in the magical realism genre make more sense than in a fantasy realm.

What I don't want to see is the equivalent of pulp sci-fi. A lot of "golden age" stories were like, the spaceman could have ridden a horse...cowboy stories with different props. Imaro 2 could be your standard Conan novel set in Africa. We shall see.